Tiny, Printed Semiconductors Will Help You Buy Wine

By Phil VillarrealAugust 10, 2009

One problem with wine is it’s impossible to remember what type goes with what food. Thankfully smart people are working around the clock, or at least 9 to 5, to solve this problem, by developing super-cheap semiconductors that can be printed with inkjets.

We won’t bore you with the details — mostly because we don’t understand them — but the point is, they will help you pick out wines:

And that could open up a huge market for so called “printed semiconductors,” which would contain an enormous amount of data but would be cheap enough to slap on thousands of products. Imagine going to the grocery store and being able to find out what wine works best with your favorite chicken recipe.

The tech, which a startup called Kovio intends to start mass-producing by launching a manufacturing plant within a few weeks, is backed by former San Francisco 49ers Brent Jones and Tommy Vardell. Which makes sense, because the Niners have been so bad for so long now, fans really need to drown their sorrows in wine. More proof that necessity breeds invention.